Order of Chaos
by Emana
Summary: After meeting a strange girl, Hatter decides to follow Alice to her world, where they start off their lives together. Unfortunately for Hatter and Alice, fate is rather fickle and things aren't always what they seem. AlicexHatter with a side of OC.


**Emana**: Okay, so I'm going on a different approach than I usually do on this story. I can't bring myself to think clearly these days so forgive me off the bat for anything strange you see. And point it out please.

First off: I do not own anything that comes from the series of _Alice, _Syfy does and Lewis Carroll owns the books they were based off of_._ Any characters and ideas that you can't place from any book or the series were probably created by me_._ But you probably already guessed all that, because you're all so clever and pretty.

Second: I'm not the best at writing accents…

Oh, and this intro about destiny is not a quote, I made it up. Just letting you know I didn't steal it from someone. _

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_The Wheel of Fortune. Destiny. Fate. The endless cycle of life and death, good and evil, happiness and despair, and the personification of the ever-present element of time. A device that seems to spin and stop of its own accord. _

_No one ever knows what hand they may be dealt, whether the wheel spins favorably or spells destruction, but all argue about its concept. For some people, destiny is an inherited trait, and people are either born with a lucky streak in their stride or stuck wearing rags on their backs; that they are either designed to pursue peace or born with hollow hearts. Others say fate has a kink in its works that, while people can't control the wheel itself, they can change the variables involved so that there may be more desirable options the spinner can land on; that even the most corrupted of people can take slow steps to retribution and, eventually, salvation. _

_The Wheel of Fortune. Destiny. Fate. Regardless of what people call it, regardless of how they may think it works, everyone believes in one simple rule:_

_Once the Wheel decides to turn, you'd be hard-pressed to stop it._

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--_Hatter_

I thought it was an oxymoron, a harmless thing at best. I looked again, and saw it was a beastly little pest. A bandersnatch to be exact. A wicked little thing with the head of a jackal, body of a ferret, and a short, fury tail with a triangular shaped horn at its end.

I cursed under my breath and tried to catch the stupid thing before it ruined what was left of my office. Which wasn't much, considering how it had gone through Mad March's idea of "searching for evidence". At least my musicmaker still worked. And thank the twinkles in the sky old March didn't get his fleshy little paws on the musicdiscs I had hidden in a clever wall contraption. They weren't the most durable things in existence and, since quite a few of them were "borrowed" from the Great Library, they weren't the most replaceable things either.

I made a furious lunge at the creature when it started wandering about the tea cabinets. I was _not _about to let the damn thing even _look_ at my precious bottles of tea leaves. Especially since I had just restocked my stores; the ever annoying cookie jar assassin had PURPOSELY burned every leaf I had because he knew how much I appreciated the relaxing and sophisticated art of drinking tea. Yep. Not at all upset that I killed him…again. I wonder if he even noticed he had a cookie jar for a head? Eh. He'd have probably gone on a Card killing spree if he had…huh. I should have thrown him a mirror instead of spending my time running. Too late for that, I guess. Note to self: show enemy reflective device when they look ridicu—

"Ehem."

A high-pitched, squeaking voice interrupted my thought process. I didn't even bother to turn around because I knew Dormie was the only being capable of such an ear-grating tone.

"A few of the customers found a girl just outside. Do you care?"

A girl? Alice?! If reason hadn't jolted in, I would have bolted right out of the office. But it couldn't possibly be Alice. She left several hours ago and, from what I learned from his annoyingness the king, that equaled to only a few minutes in her world. She wouldn't go through the Looking-Glass just to turn right around. No, it was probably a native looking to bootleg an emotion. Or else a _very_ lost oyster.

"I s'pose that just depends on wot she wants." I remarked dryly. Having this conversation wasn't going to magically bring the bandersnatch to my fingers. How I wished it was an oxymoron, then I wouldn't have bothered to crawl through the scorched remainders of grass and thus ruining the only clean and proper outfit I had at the moment. Oxymorons were so much more docile…

"Well…er…about that…"

"Don't tell me you didn't even bother to ask 'er. You know, girls don't bite," I had meant this both literally and figuratively, but I thought of Alice and all the biting comments that had come out of her mouth and added "…usually. An' why doesn't she come in and speak to me 'erself? The whole point of 'aving an office is so people can come talk to me _in_ comfort, _in_side." I couldn't hold in the frustrated sigh as my fingers just grazed the tail of the bandersnatch before it scuttled off again.

"That's all well and good, if she was conscious… but Hatter, what are you doing?"

I was kneeling down in a crouch and about to get on my stomach to chase out the beast from under my new wooden desk (a cheap replacement to the glass one I had) but after this statement I turned to look at him, gave a forlorn glance in the direction of the bandersnatch, and slowly rose to my feet.

"I was jus'," I turned to look at him again, ran my hands down collar of my jacket and, in one brisk movement, straightened it out. "in the middle of 'n important…business talk with a _very_ unwelcome guest. I wos trying to add a littl'...punch to the negotiations."

No reason to tell him I had a bandersnatch in my office. Knowing Dormie, he'd probably freak. Besides, my statement was half true, and he'd known me long enough to not ask unnecessary questions. That was the beauty of working with a scared squeak of a man.

"Not conscious you say?" I then asked as his words sunk into my head. I had braced myself for emotion addicts looking to score the final bottles of their obsession, Suits who might be giving me a check to make sure I didn't break any rules, or an angry resistance member who might not have come to grips with what's happened, but unconscious girls? Definitely not on my list of expectations. But, hey, if she's pretty enough, who am I to complain? I had already lost the most beautiful girl in existence to a mirror.

"Well, don't make the lady sleep out in the cold, bring 'er in."

Because the mouse man gave me the most questionable stare, I added "I'm going to continue my pleasant chat with my uninvited guest."

He gave me a frightened glance, and quickly left the room muttering something that sounded like "treacle", which led me to wonder if I had said that last bit a little too sharply. Not that it really mattered to me. I had every right to be slightly bitter. My life had fallen apart and I was in the midst of picking up the broken pieces in some lame attempt to carry on. At least the new king let me keep my shop; now I had the chance to serve real tea instead of innocent peoples' emotions.

I tried my luck at the bandersnatch just as it tore up a note I had received from a contact. It didn't matter 'cause I'd already seen it. Something on how the ten of clubs had reached a spot on the king's new Court of Suits, the highest of the high, only to back down from it. The fact that the old goat had wanted a chance like this for years only to run away with his tail between his legs was nothing short of pathetic. I was pretty pathetic too, considering that I had not only let Alice walk through the Looking Glass without even hinting on how I felt about her, but I couldn't even seem to catch one lousy bandersnatch.

Yes, that was what was really bothering me. It hadn't been about the unconscious girl that showed up on my doorstep, it hadn't been about the sniveling ten of clubs or the fact that the new shipment of bread and butter had been deterred, it hadn't been about the resistance members that still hated my guts or even the fact that I had a stupid bandersnatch destroying the remainders of my life. I had to do with Alice. In fact, it always had been about Alice. Because when I first met her, I thought I was still playing two sides. Little did I know that, from that moment on, I was no longer on the Queen's side or the resistance's side. I had chosen a third side: Alice's.

All those wasted years, too afraid to do anything, lying and cheating just to save my own skin, and then I finally found someone to fight for. Funny thing was, I didn't realize how much she mattered to me until it was too late. Hilarious, right?

No, she belonged in her world, and I belonged here. After all, it's where we were born, right? I was fated to live in Wonderland with all its bandersnatches, oxymorons, and crazy knights that invented new words with every sentence and she was destined to live beyond the Looking Glass with all its…its…oh, whatever household pests and crazy people they had over there. Otherwise, both of us would have been born on the same side, right? This was how things were supposed to be…

So why did it hurt so much to think of it like that?

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**Emana**: Third: Lewis Carroll liked playing with language in all its shapes and forms. Not only is this story going to have references and allusions to his work, I'm going to try playing with language too. No, I'm not going to point them all out, just think of it as a scavenger hunt. Well, okay, so there aren't many references in this chapter, but there are many to come. For example: the first two sentences under "—_Hatter_" are a salute to Lewis Carroll's "Mad Gardener's Song" only with an "I" instead of a "he". Oh, and the reason I decided to make up a creature called an "oxymoron" was not only so you would misinterpret it as talking about a literary device, but it was also meant to be an allusion to the title of this book "_Order_ of _Chaos_". There are several other little allusions as well, but you'll have to find them on your own. And this is the only chapter in which I'm going to point these things out; it's more fun this way.


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